


If It Suits You

by greyathena



Category: Ted Lasso (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29704668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyathena/pseuds/greyathena
Summary: Starting with a bit of a jaw-dropper at the charity gala, Rebecca slowly begins to see Ted in new ways.  Not all related to seeing him in different clothes.From a prompt given me by AFCrichmond; hope you like it!
Relationships: Ted Lasso/Rebecca Welton
Comments: 126
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (1) This story is not connected with any of my others.
> 
> (2) For this one I'm going to play with more frequent, shorter chapters just to mix things up. :)
> 
> (3) Somehow nothing ever comes out as straight-up fluffy as I intend in the beginning?

It was only natural, Rebecca decided.

After all, her entire world now consisted of track suits, shorts, and football boots. The only person she saw on a regular basis whose clothing didn’t have “AFC Richmond” printed somewhere on it was Higgins, in his rumpled suits the color of wilted mushroom.

And then she arrived at the gala and everyone had gone – far, much too far in the opposite direction. Suits were not meant to be shiny. Or printed like her auntie’s sofa. Or . . . was Jamie Tartt actually not wearing a shirt?

Jamie Tartt was actually not wearing a shirt. For a moment she fantasized about sending him back to Manchester. Where it was cold.

And if she were honest, she had been at least marginally afraid that Coach Lasso would show up in some kind of mad formal-cowboy ensemble. After all she had very little evidence he owned anything other than khakis and an assortment of red and blue jumpers.

So yes, yes the sight of him in a very nice, very well-fitted suit caused her brain to stutter for a moment. There was a fraction of a heartbeat when she didn’t know who she was seeing, and only dimly perceived the approach of a tall, handsome-ish stranger who thank Christ wasn’t wearing something that looked like a costume from _Guys and Dolls_. And then her facial recognition software kicked in and her shock probably showed.

(Probably? She’d said, “My God.” Out loud. And then put her damned hand on her hip as if she were posing for more photos.)

So that was horrifying. She _really_ hoped no one else had seen that.

She really hoped _Keeley Jones_ hadn’t seen that. 

And then the suit was a part of – 

Look. It was just that being hugged by a man in a formal suit brought up so . . . _much_. It reminded her of going to a dance. Of weddings. (Not _her_ wedding; Rupert had worn a kilt and a Prince Charlie jacket. Tosser.) Of her father on Sundays. Of being somehow important to someone, even for just a few hours.

So Ted Lasso hugged her, while wearing a suit, and somehow that was worse than if he’d hugged her while wearing a jumper with the Richmond seal on it. Her chin rested on the stiffness of his lapel, and he smelled of some halfway decent cologne, and for just a moment everything was normal and she was terribly sad all at the same time.

And his hug was – honestly the first word that came to mind was _inappropriate_ , but it wasn’t, not really; not like _that_ anyway. It felt safe and warm and inoffensive. But it wasn’t _polite_. A polite, distant associate, if he’d been absolutely forced to hug her, would have kept some distance between their bodies and made sure to put his hands prudently on fabric. Not the way Ted flattened his palm on her bare skin and bear-hugged her into his neck, like one of her uncles might have done when she was little. It felt like she could melt into him and he’d barely notice because he was already holding her so tightly.

So anyway that was Ted in a suit. A little proud of himself. Looking formal while breaking down all the formalities she’d kept between them. Smiling at her, as they watched Rupert leave, like the hero of a bloody rom-com. Damn him.

And it wasn’t even until the next day, when she was looking at him walking away from her in his usual khakis and jumper, that she realized she was _looking_ at him. Which was at least forty-three different problems, half of which slotted into the category “Things One Should Not Feel About the Person One is Trying to Sabotage,” and the other half of which belonged to “Ways to Act as Disgusting as Rupert, Probably.” 

Worse. Men were half expected to ogle their female employees, even though it was supposed to be treated as harassment now. If a woman did it, she was something between shameful and laughable. A caricature. A socialite past her prime leering at a –

Well at the very least Ted Lasso wasn’t a _younger_ man, but the point stood anyway.

No, she was one hundred percent not going to stand there staring at her manager’s arse like something out of the Real Housewives.

* * * * *

(Reader, she was going to stand there staring at her manager’s arse.)

(At least it was better than fantasizing about him hugging her again.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richmond in the aftermath.

There were long hours, staring at spreadsheets and rosters and contracts. Ted turned out to be surprisingly helpful - even though he'd never worked for a professional team before, he'd rebuilt the program at Wichita State from nearly nothing, with little budget and few promising recruits. Now she was asking him to essentially accomplish that again, while doing the reverse at the same time. Build the program while investing less in it. Hold on to as many players as possible without bankrupting the club.

It was a strangely intimate process, one that ended up involving the sharing of most of her financial information - only numbers and sources, but in the end she might as well have given him her account numbers and passwords. He was probably more trustworthy than her accountant anyway.

She could rescue the team for a while, they determined. What neither of them said aloud, as their eyes met over laptop screens, was that if Richmond weren't promoted after one season things would start getting more dire.

They couldn't afford to think that way. They would work hard, she would do anything he wanted her to do, and it would pay off. 

The biggest immediate risk of course was player morale. They could start losing men almost immediately, and the ones who remained couldn't play their best if everyone was depressed as well as overplayed. In a way, Richmond's dismally average record would work in their favor there - they weren't terribly used to winning, just to holding on by the skin of their teeth. Still, as the days passed - days that Ted spent mostly on the sofa in Rebecca's office and finally on the one in her apartment, becoming increasingly disheveled- she began to feel that it would be a miracle if they didn't lose half the starting eleven.

And then the headlines hit.

_AFC RICHMOND FOR SALE?_

_NEWLY-RELEGATED RICHMOND WILL BE UNLOADED, SOURCES SAY_

_WILL HE BUY IT BACK?_

That last one had a giant photo of Rupert on the sidelines of a match from before the divorce.

" _Sources_ ," Rebecca said, tossing a copy of the _Sun_ onto Ted's desk. "He'll have called them himself. What does he think he's accomplishing, other than bad press for me?"

Ted had no reason to trust her, so it warmed her heart in ways she refused to admit that he didn't ask any questions. "I thought he wanted the team to win," he said. "This kind of thing is bad for morale."

"I wonder if he actually thinks I'll sell to him," Rebecca said, sinking into the chair at Coach Beard's empty desk. "If he's trying to force my hand."

"He can't, right?"

"No. He has more money, certainly, but we're not in trouble." _Yet_ went unspoken. "I suppose he thinks he can get the press and the fans to hound me into it. I'm surprised he didn't try this before, actually, but I guess this way he can look as if he's rescuing me from a bad deal. How kind."

"Any of them actually ask you to comment?"

"God, probably." She rubbed her forehead, struggling to remember. "I've been refusing press requests till we have something concrete to tell them other than 'oh no, we do seem to have been relegated.'"

"We should talk to everybody," he said. He was leaving her space to say no, but she could see that he was serious. "They should hear from you that this is all BS. If I tell 'em, they'll just think you haven't told me yet."

She nodded. "Then let's see what else we can tell them. So far."

So he called a team meeting.

Roy Kent came, even though his retirement was all but finalized. Keeley came, still glued to Roy's side as if she'd never left it. All of them came; many looking as though they hadn't slept much more than Ted and Rebecca over the last week.

Ted just stood there for a long time in the silence of the packed locker room, looking around at all their faces. "Okay," he said finally. No one made a sound. "We've been figuring some things out. And we're still working on it. But I don't want anybody to worry." He lifted his chin in Rebecca's direction. "Boss has something to say first."

Rebecca stood from the bench she'd perched on, between Dani and Sam, and smoothed the front of her jeans; mostly because she'd forgotten she wasn't wearing a skirt. "First of all," she said, "the club is _not_ being sold. To anyone. Anyone who says it is hasn't spoken to me, and I have no intention of selling."

There was a quiet exhalation all around the room - she couldn't trace it to particular people, but it gave off an air of relief that she appreciated.

Emboldened, she swallowed and added, "And I want you all to know - that I'm not in any way disappointed in how you've played this season. I've seen how hard you've worked, and I know we're only going to keep getting better. I have faith in all of you." Feeling her face warming, she gave one more look around the room and sat down.

Ted stared at her for just a fraction too long to be comfortable before smiling and saying, "There you go, fellas. Now, obviously, some things are going to change. Some of you probably know better than I do what those things are. Seriously. I'm still not sure."

He absolutely did know, after a week of spreadsheets, but someone laughed a little so she supposed his aw-shucks routine served some purpose.

"What we are gonna try our hardest to do . . ." He looked at Rebecca, for the sake of the players who mostly turned to look at her as well, and she nodded back. "Is to make sure none of those cuts come from our personnel. But we also know you've all got careers, and families, some on the other side of the world, and you're going to have some choices. So if it's right for you - if you get offers to go and play somewhere else and you think that's what you should do - then I want you to do it. And anybody who goes, whenever you want to come back we'll do our best to make that happen. Because family sticks together. You all got me?"

Nods and murmurs around the room. Rebecca watched from the sidelines, struck by a feeling she at first couldn't name. Ted looked . . . well, exhausted, and not nearly as tidy as usual, but she'd been seeing his ruffled hair and untucked shirts for the last several days. But there was also something so solid about him, so - 

"And Rebecca and I are one mind on this. Right?"

Startled, she nodded again.

"So if you're worried about anything, anything at all, I want you to come talk to me," Ted continued.

"Or me," Rebecca interjected, and was rewarded by another long, soft look from Ted. She really had no idea what he was doing to her. He looked -

"And Keeley," Ted said, "it's about time to bring you into this, talk about what we've been working on."

"Can you afford me?" Keeley called, giving rise to another round of laughter.

"Have we been paying you?" Rebecca asked innocently. Keeley tossed a rolled-up pair of socks in her direction. Clean, at least.

"So that's it," Ted said. "Meeting adjourned, although I wouldn't say no to a pint. We'll stick around for a while though, case anybody has anything they want to ask."

A few of the players immediately clustered around him, and - that was it. He looked _fatherly_. Not in the sense of _old_ , but firm and protective. Like a leader, but the gentlest kind. It was in his expression, the way he used his hands when he talked, the way he stood, leaning just a bit toward his players. 

Her players. She smiled at Sam, who'd caught her eye. That was what he was trying to do to her - she'd come in as the boss, all detached and focused on business, and he wanted to make her their leader as much as he was. And it was working.

She ducked back up to her office to try to shake off the weight of all those nervous faces, but - as she should have known he would - Ted found her a bit more quickly than she was ready for.

"Thanks for that," he said, hovering in the doorway. "You were - what you said was exactly what they needed to hear."

"It's my fault after all," she said, surprising herself by letting it slip out.

Ted frowned. "What is?"

"Everything. The team being relegated, they didn't deserve that."

"That's not your fault."

She took a deep breath, because otherwise she was very much afraid that she might tear up. "Ted. I transferred to the opposing team, against your wishes, the player who scored the goal that got us relegated. There's a fairly direct correlation."

He came closer, slowly. "Okay. Yeah, you did that. But it wasn't your fault that the whole season came down to that one goal. It wasn't your fault that our record was so bad that we _had_ to at least tie that game. Hell, neither of us was in charge when they played the first half of the season. Nothing we did could have changed the fact that we started out two steps behind."

She swallowed and said, "I suppose not."

"And we don't know what would have happened - we lost plenty of games _with_ Jamie. You know how he is on the field. When he's playing, he's the only one who scores. Maybe we could have beat Manchester City with him on our side. Or maybe Roy, and Sam, and Dani play so much better without him that he would have hurt our chances. We can't know." He was standing next to her now, arms folded across his chest, one elbow almost touching her arm. "All we can do is keep going forward. And _forward_ . . ."

She knew what he was going to say before he even finished.

"Is to the pub to buy a round and show Richmond you're not going anywhere." Now he bumped her purposely with his elbow. 

"And that you're not," she said, looking seriously back at him.

"Yeah." After a beat, he unfolded his arms and brushed a hand against her back. "Come on, Baz and the guys haven't called me a wanker in almost a week. I'm having withdrawal."

"You should have let me know," she said, all mock concern as she gathered up her jacket. "I could have been calling you a wanker all this time."

"I appreciate that you've got my back, boss."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ted and Rebecca accidentally experiment with a little light h/c.

They were doing all right, that was the odd thing. Though of course these things never went by any logic that anyone would recognize. People were complicated and all that.

As Ted himself would point out, he'd upended his life to coach a sport he knew nothing about, and although he sometimes didn't seem like a complicated man, it turned out he'd had some pretty complicated reasons for doing that.

At any rate, they were doing all right. They were actually winning matches, for one thing. Once it was apparent not only that she wasn't selling the team but that she wasn't going to take any bait in the press either, the headlines died down. The revival of the training room curse turned out to be just a bit of mild hazing the team had decided to inflict on their two new recruits, and was put down with a bottle of Hendrick's and a ritual O'Brien had definitely gotten mostly out of Harry Potter. Rupert had been blessedly absent from her life. It was all fine.

Keeley was in her office explaining her new scheme for boosting attendance, decked from nearly head to foot in Richmond gear in preparation for the match against Queen's Park that evening. Rebecca had spent the better part of five minutes already expressing doubt that any new "fans" wanted to watch Richmond for any other reason than to witness a train wreck.

"We don't need a massive crowd that thinks they've come to watch us be thrown to the lions," she protested.

"First of all, we do if they pay."

"And if they spend the entire match booing, it throws the team off."

" _Second_ \- it's not going to be like that. We're an underdog story. They're going to love us."

"We were an underdog story all last season and that is not how it went."

Keeley tossed her hair impatiently. "Underdogs that were _losing_. No, nobody wants to watch the underdog while he's going down. They do want to watch him when he's on the way back up! Also," she said, to forestall Rebecca's interruption, "if I can figure out how to make money off joy while giving it away for free, I can sell this."

Rebecca frowned, drawn into this insanity despite herself. "All right, I'll bite. How _do_ you make money off of joy while giving it away for free?"

Keeley grinned. "Branding. We're going to design a limited edition Rojas 'mucho joy' t-shirt. All proceeds toward helping underprivileged children access football clinics."

"Okay," Rebecca said slowly. "At the risk of sounding as if I don't care about underprivileged children . . . how does that lead to making money? If all the proceeds are going . . ."

"See, this is why you need my genius. We launch a whole 'mucho joy' line of themed merchandise to go along with it. Proceeds from everything _but_ the t-shirt go to the very good cause of keeping AFC Richmond afloat. People come to buy the charity item, they'll buy other things as well. And then come to matches."

Rebecca had to give it to her. "Wow. All right. The other players won't mind all this focus on Dani?"

Keeley waved that away. "We'll get to them. But this also brings me to my next strategic goal."

"Which is?"

"Richmond doesn't do any clinics. During the summer or anything. We should be."

"Clinics," Rebecca guessed, "to . . . teach football to underprivileged children?"

"See, you're getting it."

"Just - try to make sure we stay on the right side of the line between clever and . . . fraudulent," Rebecca sighed. "Have you talked to Ted about this plan?"

"Not yet, I -"

Rebecca's phone pinged.

"Something important?" Keeley asked.

Rebecca flipped it over, saw the name of the newspaper, and said, "No, just a news alert. Go on."

But Keeley was diverted. "Not some more shit about Megan?"

Rebecca shook her head. "Probably just a match preview. I set alerts for any time the club is mentioned." She picked up her phone again and looked more closely. 

_AFC RICHMOND MANAGER TAKEN_

Taken? "Wait, hold on," Rebecca said, clicking on the notification.

_AFC RICHMOND MANAGER TAKEN TO A &E AHEAD OF QPR MATCH  
Ted Lasso, controversial American manager of AFC Richmond, was taken to hospital during preparation for this evening's match at Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium, in apparent cardiac distress_

Rebecca pushed her chair back and stood hastily, shoving her phone into her jacket pocket with shaking hands. "I have to go," she said.

"What?" Keeley stood too, looking worried. "What is it, what's happened?"

"The alert - something's happened to Ted, he's been taken to hospital -" Rebecca grabbed for her purse, already halfway across the office.

"Wait, what?" White-faced, Keeley threw her Richmond hoodie over her arm. "Hold on, I'll come."

"No." Managing to get hold of herself, Rebecca stopped in the doorway. "No, go to the stadium. Use your badge, get to the locker room. The team will be worried and you can - watch our social media. See if anything . . ."

"Okay. Okay." Keeley reached out to put a hand on Rebecca's arm. "Call or text me, all right? Not just to tell me what to put on social."

Rebecca nodded tightly before rushing from the office.

A quick call to a nervous-sounding Coach Beard told her (1) that he thought Ted was actually all right (she'd have been more ready to believe that if Beard had sounded better), and (2) which hospital he'd been told they were headed to. After what felt like an eternity fighting traffic she found herself running into the emergency department entrance at Charing Cross shouting "Ted Lasso?" like probably some kind of maniac.

There was a ringing in her ears that at first drowned out the nurse calling, "Miss? _Miss!"_ but eventually it sank in and Rebecca allowed herself to be stopped.

"I'm sorry," she said, hearing rather than feeling that she was out of breath. "My - he was brought here, he's - I don't know who his emergency contact is, he doesn't have anyone -"

" _Miss_ \- his name, what's the patient's name?"

Right. This was not being useful. "Lasso," she forced herself to say more calmly. "Ted Lasso. They said he'd had a cardiac episode, or -"

The nurse was nodding and reaching for a phone, turning her back so that Rebecca couldn't hear what she was saying into it. She lifted her head and asked, "Your name?"

"Rebecca. Rebecca Welton."

There it was - the nurse's eyebrows lifted just a centimeter. But she only turned back to the phone and said, "Rebecca Welton." There was a long pause. Rebecca looked helplessly around the waiting area, trying not to stare at the man with dried blood on his face, until the nurse lifted her head again. "Someone will be out for you in a moment."

What did that mean? Were they sending a doctor to talk to her? Were there no medical privacy laws? Maybe she _was_ his emergency contact.

A door opened and another nurse came through, calling, "Ms. Welton?"

Stupidly, Rebecca raised her hand.

The nurse smiled, which was somewhat reassuring. "You can come this way," she said, holding the door open. "Mr. Lasso said to bring you back."

Mr. Lasso was talking then, which seemed like a good sign. Still, it didn't feel as though she took a single real breath until she'd been shown into a curtained cubicle where Ted was lying, looking pale and embarrassed and wearing a hospital gown over his trousers but attached only to a pulse oximeter. "Rebecca?" he said. "They said you were here. Something wrong?"

She stared at him in disbelief. "Is something - yes, something's bloody wrong, my gaffer was taken to hospital."

Ted winced. "Coach Beard didn't call you, did he?"

"No, it was on the internet. I got an alert. Scared the hell out of Keeley." Which reminded her. With still-trembling hands she pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent a quick text. _Hes okay_

"Keeley's not here too, is she?"

"No, I sent her to Loftus Road." There was a chair close beside his bed, and she sat down on it, looking him over and taking in the lack of urgency. She leaned close and asked gently, "Was it a panic attack?"

He nodded, looking down at his lap. "I tried to tell them I was all right, but I couldn't get the words out, and somebody'd called the paramedics, or - what do you call them here?"

"Paramedics."

"Right. I guess my oxygen levels were low so they took it seriously -"

"From hyperventilation," Rebecca guessed.

"I texted Beard once I started to feel better so hopefully the team isn't too worried." He looked at his empty wrists. "I think my watch is on the table there, what time is it?"

"The match won't be starting yet, it's all right." She didn't mention that his phone was in his lap. His left hand was laying on the bed near her, and she took it and held it. "Just focus on relaxing for a bit. Are they happy with you here? Everything's all right?"

"Yeah, they took an EKG and that finally convinced them I think. They said they were sending a doctor to discharge me." He exhaled shakily. "I really don't know what happened. I can't think what - triggered it, I mean I felt all right, and then . . ."

"Yes, surely you're not under any stress," she said wryly.

"It's my job to be under stress."

She squeezed his hand. "Is this happening more than it used to?"

"Yes," he confessed.

She nodded. "Well. New country. New - everything. It's understandable."

"I didn't want it to affect the team."

"And it hasn't."

He looked up at her and took a deep breath. "Is the ambulance going to cost me an arm and a leg?"

She smiled. "Welcome to the NHS."

"The National Honor Society?"

The curtain was parted and a small, cheerful woman in a white coat entered and cast her eyes over the bed as she said, with a slight South Asian accent, "Well Mr. Lasso, I think we're ready to let you get out of here."

Rebecca realized she was still holding Ted's hand, decided it would look even more suspicious to drop it, and stood her ground.

"Sorry about the false alarm," Ted said.

The doctor shook her head. "We're not. Better a false alarm than a missed crisis." She glanced at a clipboard. "The nurse will give you a sheet with your recommendations. I'm not writing a prescription at this time but I do suggest talking with your GP."

Rebecca, beginning to feel awkward, said, "I could step out -" but Ted resisted her attempt to pull her hand away from his.

"No, it's okay," he said. He jerked his head in her direction and said to the doctor, "My boss. She should probably know I'm not going to keel over on the fi- pitch."

"Oh," the doctor said, keeping whatever opinions she probably had of Ted's relationship with his boss to herself. 

Luckily, the doctor had left by the time Ted was sitting up with his legs over the bed and taking off the hospital gown. Because he had to ask Rebecca twice to hand him his shirt. Mortifying. Not that there was a good time to be staring at her manager shirtless, but when he was in _A &E_ was especially ridiculous. Yes, noticing how he looked with his shirt off probably was a way to distract herself from how terrified she'd been when she'd thought he was having a heart attack. But that didn't make it appropriate. He was _unwell_ , he didn't need to be ogled.

Not that he looked unwell, anymore. Embarrassed, yes. Unwell, no. 

"Hey," he said as he was pulling on his jumper. He sounded a bit more himself now, less shaken. "I really appreciate you coming all the way over here."

"I was - worried." _Worried_ was a more sensible word than _terrified_. Much more sensible than admitting she'd just sprinted from her office without even thinking. She came around the end of the bed to touch his back. "Do you want - I could take you home, or -"

"No!" He looked at her as if she were insane. "No, we have to go to the game."

"If you're sure -"

"I'm - I'm fine, honest. Much better. The guys need to see me."

"All right." She slipped her phone out of her pocket again. "I'll just tell Keeley we're on our way - that you, what? that you had some difficulty breathing but it seemed to be a false alarm and everything was fine." Stopping her typing mid-word, she looked up to meet his eyes and said, "Unless you'd rather tell her everything? I don't want to assume. It's not that I think it should be kept secret, it's just it's your business. She'll want to put something on our social media, though."

Ted nodded. "No, what you said is good. I'll talk to Keeley later maybe, but for social media - that's good."

"Okay." She finished typing and hit send. Seconds later her phone flashed up with _hes rly rly alright?_

 _Really really_ she typed back, before putting her phone away again and taking Ted by the arm. "Ready?"

He covered her hand on his arm with his other hand for a moment and said, looking down at the floor between them, "I really - thank you. For worrying."

She managed not to give a number of dismissive responses that occurred to her, but as a result did not manage to say anything at all. After looking at him so long that he finally lifted his head and returned her gaze, she smiled and led him out of the cubicle.

Richmond won.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventures in formalwear, the sequel, part one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi yes, each chapter doubles the word count. I blame these two for being impossible to write anything short about.

A normal person would have just called up one of the few single men she knew, ignored the fact that most of them were creeps, and got on with it; _or_ , just asked the one single man she knew who she actually liked and not made it weird.

Rebecca was not a normal person.

So she swore thirty or forty times, picked up her phone and put it down again, psyched herself up for an entire morning, and when Ted walked into her office with his little box of biscuits she blurted out "Can I ask you a favor?" so abruptly that he jumped.

He recovered enough after a moment to set the box on her desk and say, "Sure, anything. What's up?"

Feeling like an idiot, she stammered, "It's just - it's this fundraising dinner. It's to do with the Commonwealth Games. Somehow I ended up on a committee, and they don't even include football so honestly I don't know why there are so many football people on these committees, but -"

"Got it," Ted said. "Do we need to prepare anything, or - ?"

"No, it's not . . ." See, this would be much less awkward if she were, well, much less awkward. "It's not that kind of thing. I just mean. I need a date."

"Oh." Ted's facial expression slid through a sort of blankness into cheer. "Okay. Sure."

"Really?"

His lip curled a little. "It's not black tie, is it?"

"No."

"Oh good. I do not own a tux."

"No, it's - well a bit like our annual gala, but more . . . staid. Older crowd. Less moshing."

"I can handle that." He grinned.

"And a bit . . ." She made a face, not wanting to oversell it, but. "Bit like going into battle, honestly. _That_ kind of crowd."

"You need a wingman. Got it."

What she _needed_ was a trophy date with several million pounds and a country home - or, failing that, a celebrity - to keep the wolves off her back. No one would know what to do with an affable American telling folksy stories at them. But maybe on the whole she would rather have a "wingman" she trusted, after all.

And he wasn't completely hopeless. Through some psychic power he seemed to have, not minutes after she'd finally settled on a dark green, full-skirted dress she hadn't worn in at least a few years and never to the Commonwealth events, she received a text from him that said _Tell me what color tie to wear?_

She squinted at the dress, which was a fussy, hard-to-match shade, and typed back _Grey?_ It would be dull, but they wouldn't clash or, worse, look like a Christmas bauble.

_You're wearing a gray dress?_

_It's dark green but it's a tricky colour._

_Got it._

When the car brought her to his flat and she got out to knock on the door, he opened it wearing the suit she remembered from the gala and a light silvery-grey tie with thin stripes of forest green. His eyes widened and he said, "That color is great on you. Look." Before she could decide whether to blush he was holding the end of his tie out toward her waist. "Not bad, huh?"

It wasn't; not a perfect match but the stripes were too fine to tell. "Not bad at all," she said.

He put his hand on the small of her back to slide her out of the way so he could step out and shut the door. "Now you'll tell me whatever you need me to do tonight," he said. "But first - you might have to explain the Commonwealth thing. Because I Googled but if I'm honest, it did not help."

The explanation, which devolved into a history of various parts of Africa and South Asia, took them almost to the door of the venue and Ted still looked a bit lost as they stepped out of the car. But he stood beside her as she paused on the steps, looked at her while fastening the button on his jacket, and said, "Shields up?"

She nodded. "Full power."

"Okay. Let's go."

And all right, walking into the lion's den with Ted's hand on her back was much pleasanter than doing so beside some rich arsehole that she only knew because he'd once played rugby with her friend's cousin or something.

Of course, the moment they walked in the door and were handed flutes of champagne, Ted caught sight of a display of Commonwealth nations, said, "Ooh, this'll help," and wandered off. Leaving Rebecca alone to be greeted by Lucy and Ashton Hall, who had chaired her committee the previous year.

"Rebecca!" they gushed in near-synchronization and in equally false tones.

"So glad to see you looking so well," Lucy said, as Rebecca allowed Ashton to make a show of kissing her cheek. "But - oh dear, where's your date gone already?"

"He's looking at flags," Rebecca said drily, sipping her champagne. That at least wasn't terrible. 

Ashton grinned and winked. "Ah, we know what that's code for, eh? There's not much talent about, but what there is, is quality."

"Well, never mind," Lucy said. "What are men like? He -" She'd turned to look for Ted, and the faux-sympathetic smile dropped from her face. "He's looking at flags."

"Mmmhmm." Rebecca took another sip to help her keep her face pleasantly neutral. "He's still processing the whole Commonwealth business. I suppose I wouldn't be much less confused if he asked me to remember which states are in the Orange Bowl." That was a thing, wasn't it? The Orange Bowl? Whatever, Lucy and Ashton wouldn't know.

Ted was wildly signaling to her. Thank God. "Excuse me," she said, not waiting for a reply. "What is it?" she asked when she'd reached his side.

"Oh, nothing. I mean the flag of Eswatini is neat, but you just looked kinda trapped over there."

"I was. Thank you." She looked idly at the flag, which _was_ interesting. 

"Sorry about that. We're not sitting with people you can't stand, are we?"

She sighed. "Probably. Let's see."

The table of placecards was just to their left. Her own card and "Mr Theodore Lasso" 's had a seven on them, and a quick survey of the other sevens confirmed her suspicion. "It's going to be a long evening," she muttered.

Ted knocked his nearly-empty champagne flute against hers and said, "Wingman!"

"You'll probably regret agreeing to this." He probably already did. She looked ahead into the crowd and the view did not improve. "This year's chairs," she said, nodding in their direction so Ted would look. "Sir David Haworth and Joanna Terrie. He used to play cricket. She's . . . rich."

"Do you need to talk to them?" Ted asked.

"No." She probably _should_ , but that was different. And she wasn't going to do it on only one drink. Luckily they were getting closer to the ballroom where the band was playing, and that would make conversation difficult anyway.

"Do you _want_ to talk to them?"

"No."

"Okay then." Ted took her empty glass and put it, with his, on a tray; then held out his hand to her.

"What?" she asked.

Still holding his hand out, he tipped his head in the direction of the dance floor.

"Really?"

He wiggled his fingers, hand still extended.

Taken aback, she said, "All right," and took his hand.

"Good, that was getting awkward," he said as he led her to the floor, where enough couples were already dancing that it felt appropriate to join them. 

She put her left hand on his shoulder and watched him look down at her feet. "Ted," she said quickly, "it's fine if you don't know actual steps -"

"Are you kidding? My sixth-grade PE teacher would go back in time to flunk me." Smoothly he stepped closer and put his hand on her waist. "Just never danced with anyone who had longer legs than mine before. I'm used to stepping shallow."

He was, in fact, utterly competent. Rebecca allowed herself five seconds, no more, to notice how many people were noticing them.

"You're working really hard at letting me lead, aren't you?" Ted's teasing voice said close to her ear.

She looked back at him, eyebrow raised. "Shut up. Yes."

He grinned and playfully shook their linked hands a little to get her to relax her shoulders. It sort of worked. "So who do you actually have to talk to?" he asked.

"Honestly? No one. I really just need to be seen attending."

"That's not so bad, then?"

"No, it isn't."

This wasn't so bad either. Ted looked . . . very nice; he was looking at her as if this weren't a complete and total chore; they weren't bumping into other people or stepping on each other's feet; and the band was decent. So far this was the best she'd ever felt at one of these events after only one drink.

Until. "Oh God," she said, looking over Ted's shoulder.

"What?"

"Angus Reid-Smythe. Friend of Rupert's. Serial groper. Loves to cut in." Had he seen her? Maybe no one would notice if she suddenly fled the room.

"Sounds like a great guy," Ted said. "He coming this way?"

"Maybe. I don't think he's honed in yet."

"Well, let's make sure he doesn't feel welcome." Ted stepped closer to her, sliding his arm all the way around her waist. She was flustered enough by this that their knees knocked together, and she had to look down and place her left foot between his feet to avoid tripping. But once she was settled they were able to recover their rhythm, her skirts now brushing his legs with every step. And Angus Reid-Smythe looked straight in her direction. Panicked, she turned her face into Ted's neck.

"Incoming?" Ted asked.

"Not sure." Oh God, the song was ending. She tightened her hand in Ted's and practically begged, "Don't let go."

"Wouldn't dream of it." She hadn't thought they could get much closer but he repositioned his arm, taking the space between songs to draw her against him. He moved their joined hands to rest against his chest just as the band started playing a much slower number. For the best, since she didn't think they could manage much footwork in this position.

Thank God it was him and not any of those creeps she was dancing a slow one with. As she let her temple lean against the side of his head, she carefully kept her gaze lowered and watched in her peripheral vision as Reid-Smythe bypassed them in his cross of the dance floor. "Crisis averted, I think," she whispered.

Ted's thumb rubbed over the back of her hand. "Older guy in a velvety jacket?"

"That's him."

"Yeah, he just tried to grope a waitress. She took evasive maneuvers though."

"I hope she spilled a drink on him."

"No luck."

Ted's other hand was moving on her back, a gentle caress before he resettled into position. She'd been wondering if they should separate a bit now that the emergency was past, for the sake of propriety or to keep it from becoming awkward, but Ted didn't seem anxious to do so and she found herself not minding. She was comfortable like this; content. Almost as if that weird feeling in her chest were _happiness_.

So sod propriety, really. She sighed and leaned into him.

And then the song ended, and the band leader announced dinner. That was a short-lived feeling of happiness.

She knew she must be flushed as she backed out of Ted's hold, and she suspected her hair was a bit mussed as well. "I just need to . . ." she said, nodding toward the foyer.

"Oh sure. I'll wait." He smiled. Just as if they were normal people in a normal situation and not lonely Rebecca and her hapless gaffer about to have dinner with eight of her absolute least favorite people.

He was still smiling when she returned, having smoothed her flyaways, fixed her lipstick, and thrown back a hasty glass of champagne. With a grand gesture he said, "Table fourteen this way."

She frowned. "Wasn't it seven?"

"I may have made some adjustments while you were in the ladies'." He handed her their placecards, both of which now indeed said "14". A close look revealed that the one and the slightly odd-looking cross bars of the 4 had been added with a different pen.

A slow smile spreading across her face, she asked, "Who did you move from fourteen? And how on earth did you turn a fourteen _into_ a seven?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Angus Reid-Smythe," he said, taking her hand and drawing her arm through his. "And, I turned a one into a seven. And turned a four into a little sideways Commonwealth Games symbol. You know, with the Vs."

"Won't they feel special," Rebecca murmured. She was going to have to give Ted a raise. "So who are we sitting with?"

He led her ahead of him so that she could see the table with "14" on it and the people gathering around it, most of whom she immediately recognized as players from the women's football league. The others must have been dates.

Her hand tightened on Ted's arm and she said, "Oh my God, I fucking love you."

He laughed. "I met some of these gals at that training conference Beard and I went to last month. They were great."

"That old pervert would have loved this table." Which the organizers would have known, but Angus and Maria could hardly complain about being elevated to a more prominent seat.

One of the players looked over and called, in a recognizably American accent, "Coach Lasso!"

"Robin!" He escorted Rebecca toward the two empty places at the table, which were beside the player who'd called out. "Rebecca, this is Robin -"

"Allbrooke," Rebecca said as she shook the girl's hand, her quick mental scan finishing just in time. Robin Allbrooke, she remembered, played for the American national team, but she had a British father and in the regular season she played for . . . "You play for Bristol."

"Yeah, I do!" Robin said, sounding delighted that Rebecca knew this.

"And this is Kristy Eddington," Ted said, gesturing toward the woman who had just sprung out of the chair beside Rebecca to shake her hand. "She plays for Bristol, too."

"Of course, I know who you are as well," Rebecca said. With a last grateful look at Ted, she sank into her chair. This was . . . _so_ much better than usual.

Within two minutes one of the other players had called her "Ms. Welton" and been cheerfully corrected, Kristy Eddington had passed her one of the bottles of wine they'd appropriated for the table, and Ted was trying to explain something called "Deflategate" to a player's male companion.

_So_ much better. At table seven they'd still be trading passive-aggressive "compliments" and probably insinuating cheap things about her and Ted.

Instead, dinner was a merry blur of good-natured teasing, mild trash-talking between members of different national teams, and play recreations featuring the wine bottles and an assortment of tableware. Rebecca was quiet through most of it, content to listen and not be in the spotlight, not be put on the spot. This, being comfortable and gregarious in a happy group of regular people, this was Ted's territory and he was shining.

"Now come on, Róisín," he laughed, moving a salt cellar by prodding it with a butter knife. "You can't tell me this is legal."

Rebecca hadn't recognized the face of the Irish player but the first name helped her fill in the rest from what she knew. Róisín Cannon. Midfielder. She shouldn't have been surprised that Ted knew how to pronounce it; he was good with names.

"It isn't if that knife is still a goal post," Róisín replied. "Though it's a great trick."

"I ran out." Ted leaned over and bumped Rebecca's shoulder with his. "Hey boss, can I borrow your knife?"

She passed it over. "Here. Have a defender."

"Thanks." His hand closed over hers as he took the knife from her, and she saw a few of the others at the table notice it. No one said anything though; the American player called Ayana only asked her to pass the wine.

At table seven someone would have made a snide comment about how "close" they were, or how well they got along. It would probably have been Angus. And he'd have said it in a way that insinuated she was open for business.

Shuddering, Rebecca ate her fish course before Ted had a chance to decide he needed her fork.

The resumption of music and dancing provided another opportunity for disaster; technically it wasn't rude to dance only with her own date all evening, but she'd be expected to mix somewhat. And if they stayed seated at the table someone would definitely come over and ask her.

This problem was unexpectedly solved by Kristy Eddington standing up and offering her hand. "Would you, Rebecca?" she asked.

Eyebrows lifting in surprised delight, Rebecca looked quickly over at Ted. He grinned and waved her off with both hands.

Rebecca smiled at Kristy, said, "All right," and followed her to the floor. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ted getting up with Robin Allbrooke.

"I know you're taller than I am," Kristy said as they found a clear spot. "But I'll only keep trying to lead so you might as well let me."

"So will I," said Rebecca, "but I'll do my best."

Kristy was no Ted Lasso, but she wasn't a bad dancer. "I'm a bit surprised the two of you were at our table," she said as they moved among the other couples. "Usually we get someone awful who's supposed to represent the federation."

"You did," Rebecca admitted. "Coach Lasso switched our placecards."

" _Legend_ ," Kristy said, laughing. "I knew I liked him."

"He's . . . good, yes."

"And you're friends with Keeley Jones, aren't you?" Off Rebecca's slightly startled nod, Kristy continued, "Normally I wouldn't - you know, I only just followed her when she started posting so much about Richmond. But she's really - _nice_ , isn't she? I mean I noticed even when it's not about football she never posts anything mean or negative. I never would have thought one of those influencer types would be like that."

"One does expect it to be all feuds and, I don't know, boyfriend-stealing," Rebecca said. "But no. Not with her. It's actually a bit of a trial to get her to properly hate someone."

"How did you get to be friends?"

"It's a short story really. We met because she was dating Jamie Tartt -"

" _That_ wanker. Sorry."

"God, he really is, isn't he? Anyway, she just decided we were going to be friends. I blame Ted. Before he came, everyone was much more afraid of me apparently. I think he showed them I wasn't going to eat them." She pulled a face. "Unfortunately."

"It's nice you're so close," Kristy said, glancing over to where Ted was dancing with Robin. "I mean that the two of you get along so well."

Rebecca smothered a laugh and only said, "Yes, it is," because Kristy sounded perfectly earnest.

Her eyes drifted back to Ted then - she was almost a little . . . jealous? was she? that he and Robin were having so much fun. Twirling and messing around a bit; in slight danger of banging into someone. Did it matter that they weren't so carefree together?

But then the song ended, and Robin walked Ted over to Rebecca and Kristy to suggest changing partners; and Rebecca found herself gathered close to Ted again, as close as they'd been when they finished the last dance before dinner. No stopoff in proper dance form along the way this time. And it was just - nice; it felt really fucking nice and discovering that was probably a huge mistake but here they were. He felt so comfortable and smelled so good and actually "comfortable" might not be the word for the way her stomach felt when their legs brushed, but it was close enough. 

_Shit._

Beside her he took a deep breath which ended in a halting, sort of stuttering exhale. She almost asked if he was all right; decided not to; but then suddenly worried that he might not be, you know, _all right_ because that trip to A&E hadn't been that long ago -

She moved her hand to the back of his neck and said quietly, "Ted?"

As if it were his response, the arm around her waist slid up so that his hand was on her shoulder blade. Her dress left her skin bare there, and his palm was warm. "Yeah?" he said after a second or two.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." His tone said _maybe not but sure._

"Like - okay?" she tried again, leaning back a bit so that she could see his face instead of looking over his shoulder.

"Oh yeah - yeah," he said. "Totally fine."

She knew what a face looked like when someone was forcing it to be bright - mostly from looking in a mirror - but he didn't sound as if he were going to have a panic attack, and anything else, he'd tell her if he wanted her to know.

It was Ted. She wouldn't be able to stop him.

"Okay," she said, and settled back against him. She left her hand at his neck, his hair touching her fingertips.

When the evening had ended, and they'd said goodbye to their table and performed what Ted called a "quick extraction" - weaving slalom-like through the room to avoid anyone Rebecca didn't really have to greet - and they were standing on the steps outside waiting for the car, Rebecca suddenly realized that this had been _fun_. She'd actually enjoyed herself at one of these horrid things for once. Weeks' worth of dread slid off her like scales, and as Ted took her arm she only barely managed not to blurt out that she loved him again. Who knew the company actually made this much difference?

In the car she considered asking him home with her for a drink, and let her mind play out the universe of possibilities. If he came in with her now, and they drank any more, yes there was a universe in which he left straight away but she was lonely and this had been so nice and he looked so good that there was a much likelier universe in which she forgot who they were and kissed him. And she could easily envision a universe in which he kindly, gently rejected her; a universe in which he kissed her back and then left; a universe in which he kissed her back and didn't leave and they ended up in her bedroom. Even a universe in which he kissed her back and they didn't make it to the bedroom. All this unspooled in her mind as they rode, and while the one outcome would be the most painful thing that had happened to her in a _while_ , all the others would be a massive mistake.

So she let the car go directly to his address and let him get out with a squeeze of his hand and a sincere, "Thank you." Which he returned with a smile.

And the door closed, the car moved off, and her phone lit up with a text from Keeley. _HAVE YOU SEEN INSTAGRAM?_


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventures in formalwear, the sequel, part two.
> 
> Instagram.

Rebecca tried to wait.

Upon seeing Keeley's message she had a quick initial rush of alarm and nearly navigated straight to the app, but with her thumb hovering over the icon she paused. Did she really want to know whatever it was _right_ now?

For one thing, given it was Keeley, there was maybe equal chance that this was something which somehow affected Rebecca, or that Keeley had got up to a hundred thousand followers or been named the face of Boots. Or that she really just wanted Rebecca to see her shoes. Or that a Kardashian had "broken the internet" again.

And Rebecca was feeling - well, not completely "good" exactly, more like exhilarated and wrung out and sort of longing and a bit mixed up, but "good" was a good enough word. She wasn't feeling _bad_ anyway, and if whatever was on Instagram was about her, there was a reasonable chance it would lead to her feeling bad. Did she really want to be brought down right now?

She did not.

On the other hand patience was not her strong suit and she was dying of curiosity.

Quick glance? Just long enough to make sure it wasn't about her?

But then what if it was?

All right. She would look, but under the right circumstances.

The right circumstances were after she'd gotten back to her flat, taken off her shoes, poured a whiskey, and arranged herself comfortably on the sofa with her glasses on. The whiskey and the sitting down were really the most important parts.

After a slow sip, she let herself open Instagram.

Nothing immediately exploded; the first thing she saw was a sepia-filtered photo of her auntie Ellen's Yorkshire terrier, and three new stories, two of which were Richmond players doing some sort of "challenge" that involved kicking the football at a wall and trying not to get hit in the face. Or trying to get hit in the face. It was unclear.

The third new story was . . . her auntie Ellen's Yorkshire terrier. He'd hunted a leaf.

Nothing jumped out as she scrolled down either. Keeley and Roy appeared to have spent the evening making pasta. Which she supposed was impressive? She texted Keeley a _looks good_ and a thumbs-up emoji and went back to idly scrolling to occupy the time while she finished her drink.

 _THAT'S IT???_ Keeley texted back.

Rebecca frowned at her phone, then sent back _sorry I mean it's very impressive?  
I mean I've never made pasta  
well done Roy_

Instantly Keeley responded _why are you talking about pasta???!!_

"Okay," Rebecca said aloud as she typed. _I thought you wanted me to see it  
you told me to look at instagram_

_not the PASTA ffs  
search tags  
fuck it nm_

A notification that Keeley Jones was sharing a post lit up her screen. The whiskey and the confusing pasta interlude had dulled Rebecca's dread enough that she just clicked automatically while taking another sip of whiskey.

And that - that was a photo of her dancing with Ted.

Was it bad? It wasn't that bad. She was torn between scrutinizing how she looked versus how _it_ looked. 

She looked okay. No actually, she looked good. Only just enough of her face was showing that she would be recognizable, but her dress was hanging right and her arms - well, arm and one shoulder - looked good. No awkward angles or third chins or dangly bits that shouldn't have been dangling.

 _It_ looked . . . like there was a reason Keeley had flagged it.

Actually, how _had_ Keeley flagged it?

She scrolled down enough to read the caption, which - posted by “joknee90”, an unfamiliar user name that meant nothing to her - said _Are these two a couple irl???? #AFCRichmond_

"I R L," Rebecca said aloud. "As opposed to what, on television?" The Richmond hashtag had done it then. Keeley would be following it, and so would . . . a lot of people.

Taking a deep breath, and then another fortifying sip, she went back to the photo. It had been taken late in the evening; her hands remembered the feeling of Ted's neck, the slight friction of his hair, his hand clasped in her other one against the smooth fabric of his jacket. Of course she remembered; it couldn't have been an hour ago.

It wasn't improper exactly, but they didn't look like colleagues/boss and gaffer/friends, either.

Maybe it hadn’t _felt_ like colleagues/boss and gaffer/friends.

He also, by the way, looked good. Not that she’d forgotten in the twenty minutes since she’d last seen him.

_I assume that silence means youve seen it?_

Rebecca clicked to the text and sent back another thumbs-up.

_AND???_

Rebecca shrugged, threw back the rest of her whiskey, and sent a shrug emoji.

_. . .  
. . .  
we are SO talking tomrw_

_eat your pasta_ , Rebecca texted back and returned to Instagram. Much as she was afraid to do so, she needed to see the response. And who the hell was "joknee90"? Probably someone's date, since her profile was full of wine glasses and sunsets.

The post had . . . it had fifty likes. It was "liked by noicol08 and 49 others". Oh hell. This was - this was too many cans of worms. One of those cans needed the lid put back on. She tapped her fingertips against the side of her empty glass for a moment, then, knowing she was going to have a possibly awkward conversation in the morning, opened a direct message to noicol08 and typed "go to bed! <3 Aunt Rebecca".

Maybe thirteen-year-olds didn't show their mothers everything they saw on Instagram. That would be nice. Fuck it, she was pouring another whiskey.

Full glass in hand and returned to the sofa, she went to the comments.

The very first one was from rob.allbrooke and said _they were at our table! Could not be nicer people <3!_ Which was sweet, and also read a little bit like an attempt to take the heat off. Rebecca appreciated that. 

The rest, given the girl didn't appear to be a sports account, were mostly sort of confused and neutral. _who are these people?  
if they're not a couple they should be  
cute!  
are those your parents?_

Rebecca gave that one a silent middle finger and drank a bit more whiskey before continuing to scroll. And here came the people who followed the Richmond hashtag.

_hey is that the wanker?  
is this a thing?  
I feel like we should have seen this coming [angry emoji]  
kinda cute <3  
ngl that is one sexy wanker_

Also a lot of aubergines, intermixed with some more angry emojis.

Should she - should she text Ted? He should know, shouldn't he? Or was that a terrible idea?

What would she even say? An ominous hint to check the hashtags, like Keeley had sent her? An apology? "Did you know you were a sexy wanker?"

No, she'd just pounded two whiskeys and she was not going to open a new can of worms. Not tonight. Too many worms. She was going to go to bed, and deal with it tomorrow.

And definitely not stare at the photo some more before going to sleep.

*****

In the morning there were more.

More comments, and also more photos. Three more accounts had posted, all tagging AFC Richmond and one thoughtfully adding _#oldrebecca_. One of the posts (not the one with the offending hashtag) was shared by cannonrosh and was a photo taken at their table during dinner, with Ted and Robin Allbrooke staring at an assortment of cutlery while Rebecca laughed at them. The rest of the caption read _When worlds collide . . . @rob.allbrooke #bristolcitywomen #uswnt_. That one Rebecca didn't mind at all. In fact, after half a moment's hesitation, she "liked" it.

The other two were variations on the one from last night, more dancing shots. The one tagged "oldrebecca" had somehow managed to get an angle that made it look like Ted's hand was somewhere inappropriate, even though Rebecca was pretty sure she'd have remembered that. It was probably a trick of the eye caused by the folds of her skirt. The comments seemed to have gone a bit downhill as well, featuring a great deal more swear words and a lot more aubergines.

It was going to be a super day.

She didn't have to wait long to run into Keeley; her friend was standing in the parking lot when she arrived, practically hopping. " _Well?_ " she said as Rebecca got out of the car.

"I saw them," Rebecca said.

"I need so much more than that." Keeley hooked her arm through Rebecca's and pulled her aside, not letting her get to the door. "First of all, if you are keeping romantic secrets from me, that is very painful and not at all fair. Second - you can't be keeping romantic secrets from me if it's _inter-team_!"

"I think you mean 'intra,'" Rebecca said. "Unless someone posted a photo of me dancing with Kristy Eddington?"

" _You danced with Kristy Eddington?_ "

"She asked nicely." Rebecca frowned. "Should I not have?"

"No, I just . . ." Keeley's face rearranged itself from shock into aggravation. "I just thought we had an agreement, you know a silent agreement, that if you ever did dip your toe in the lady pool -"

"I am not dipping my toe, or anything else, anywhere," Rebecca said. "And I assume you were actually talking about the other photos . . ."

"Yes I'm talking about the other photos!"

"Are you asking as the team's brand manager or as my friend?"

Keeley paused to consider this. "As the team's brand manager, I am thinking about what we're going to say. As your friend, I want to know what the fuck is going on with you and Ted?"

Fair enough. Rebecca waved weakly at Colin and Isaac, who were heading in the door, and said in an undertone to Keeley, "I don't know, and, nothing."

" _Nothing?_ "

"I asked him to go with me because I needed a date, and we were dancing because - it didn't involve talking to people I hate." She was talking in limericks now. Wonderful.

"Dancing?" Keeley raised an eyebrow and held out her phone, the first post from last night displayed. " _This_ . . ." With her finger she drew an air circle around a couple in the background of the shot. "is dancing. _This_ . . ." Rebecca and Ted. "is cuddling while moving your feet."

"That is a massive exaggeration."

"Rebecca, I haven't seen people dance like this since year ten, when you were doing it because you couldn't have sex."

"First of all, unless you were in year ten in the 1950s, no one danced like this and they were perfectly capable of having sex."

" _Are_ you?" Keeley asked in a stage whisper.

"Am I what? Capable?"

"Are you and Ted . . ."

" _No!_ "

"Look, whatever." Keeley's voice rose to a normal level and she backed off a bit out of Rebecca's personal space. "You've turned Ted into a thirst trap overnight, so that's -"

"What?"

"It means -"

"I know what it means. But - what?"

Keeley raised an eyebrow and started to read off her phone. "Yes daddy."

"Ew."

"Call me crazy but he can get it. What is it about guys in suits. Moustache man is kind of hot, question mark question mark. W T F, coach is a snack."

"Okay, okay," Rebecca said. "That's all . . . disturbing. How is this my fault?"

"You give him cachet."

Rebecca's nose wrinkled. Did she have cachet? "Most of those people don't even know who I am."

Keeley waved her phone in Rebecca's direction. "You, a desirable woman, appear to desire him, thereby making him appear desirable."

"I can't possibly unpack that."

"Oh, also. Could you rate for me your level of offense versus flattery at being called a MILF?"

Rebecca blinked. "What?"

"Only I need to know which comments I should like."

"You're asking if you should like comments calling me a MILF?"

"Should I?"

"Hey, boss. Keeley."

Rebecca jumped about a mile in the air at the sound of Ted's voice from behind her. Ignoring Keeley, who was smirking, she turned and said, "Good morning, Ted," before returning her focus to Keeley and adding, "Not from the club's account!"

"I wasn't going to do it from the club account," Keeley said, affronted.

Ted had his phone in his hand when he joined them. "So, ah. We've all seen . . ."

"I'm so sorry," Rebecca said immediately.

Ted frowned. "For what?"

"I'm the one who asked you to that dinner, and -"

He held up a hand to stop her. "Hey, no. They're nice pictures. It's not like . . ." He waved a hand, apparently unable to say what it wasn't like. "I do hope Shannon never tells her parents that I asked her what an eggplant means, but -"

Keeley snorted so hard that it turned into a cough.

"Who's Shannon?" Rebecca asked, lost.

"This girl in the neighborhood I know. Nice kid. Usually run into her on her way to school."

"How old is she?" Rebecca asked with some trepidation.

"About sixteen?"

Christ. Well thank God Ted was Ted.

"Out of curiosity," Keeley said, overcome with giggles, "what did she say?"

"She just said ' _Ted'_ and kept raising her eyebrows at me till I figured it out on my own," Ted said, his face doing a passable impression of a sixteen-year-old girl's.

" _Anyway_ ," Rebecca said, "I don't think we have to say anything about it, do we? Something else will come along and people will move on."

"That's the spirit," Ted said. He was looking a bit tired, maybe a bit less perfectly put-together than usual. Rebecca found herself looking at his shoulders in that familiar grey jumper, remembering what it had felt like to lean against him last night. How solid he was.

"Holy shit," Keeley said.

This did not seem like a reasonable response to either Ted's comment or Rebecca's embarrassing moment of woolgathering, so Rebecca asked, "What now?"

Keeley was looking at her phone. "Are you ready for this?"

Nervously Rebecca glanced at Ted, who was doing the same to her. "Okay?" she said.

"Bex just liked Róisín Cannon's post."

Rebecca's stomach dropped at the reminder that this actually could get worse if Rupert got involved. "Did she say anything?"

Keeley shook her head. "Nope. Just liked it. And not any of the others."

"That's just the one of us at the dinner table, right?" Ted asked.

"Yeah." Keeley shrugged. "Maybe she's being nice?"

"Maybe . . ." Rebecca said doubtfully.

Ted, who had been peering over Keeley's shoulder, lifted his head and said, "I have an idea."

"For what?" Keeley asked.

"For the next thing that will come along and take people's minds off this." He paused. "But I think we're gonna need a tailor."

*****

After the first brief moments when she'd thought he must have lost his mind, Rebecca had to admit that Ted's idea was a decent one. Keeley liked it too, and so off they scattered - Ted to make a call, Keeley to move up a press conference that was supposed to be in three days, and Rebecca to call the woman who altered her clothes.

This actually might work.

Granted she wasn't as sure later that afternoon, when Ted was facing a room full of camera flashes and people shouting questions like, "Are you and Rebecca involved?" and "Are you concerned it might not be appropriate for you to date the club's owner?" Ted kept his cool, waving them into silence.

"Where'd Rebecca get her dress?" one reporter shouted as everyone else quieted.

"I assume from her closet," Ted said. "Now listen. I know you're all here to find out who's going to model our redesigned away uniforms . . ."

" _Kit_ ," one of the reporters muttered in a carrying undertone, while another yelled, "No we're not!" and the room descended into another dull roar.

"So," Ted said, as if none of this were happening, "we've got a guest with us I think you'll all recognize . . ."

The door opened and thank God, the press room did erupt in a wave of recognition, more flashes going off, and shouted questions.

Ted now had to shout over the din. "Obviously we'd like to thank our friend Robin Allbrooke for stopping by . . . hope those guys at Bristol City aren't too mad about you helping us out here."

Robin shrugged in her (hastily cut-down and tailored) Richmond away jersey as the reporters laughed. "I'm sure they're looking forward to your next match," she said.

"Robin!"  
"Robin!"  
"Robin! Did you see Coach Lasso and Ms. Welton last night?"

Rebecca shrank back into the doorway.

"We had a great time," Robin said smoothly. "Always happy to support the Commonwealth Games, and I think there's now a deathmatch on to determine whether Coach Lasso has to support the US or England at the next women's World Cup."

"But -"  
"Robin!"  
"How'd you decide to come over and play for Bristol, Robin?"

Robin grinned and said, "Well, Richmond doesn't have a women's team."

Ted dropped a hand on her shoulder. "Robin, you can come and play for Richmond any time."

Behind Rebecca, Higgins muttered, "Are there actual rules about that, or is it just -"

"Trent Crimm, The Independent."

Rebecca silently groaned, wondering if yet another can of worms were about to be opened.

"What do you think would happen, Coach Lasso," Trent asked, "if you actually did invite a female player onto the team?"

Robin's smile grew broader. "Well, if he'd done it last week, they might have beat Derby County."

Rebecca had held her breath for a moment, but Robin was good. The room was laughing and Trent Crimm looked resigned that he wasn't going to get anyone to say anything headline-worthy.

Ted's idea . . . had worked.

As they slipped into the hall after ending the press conference, Rebecca shook Robin's hand enthusiastically, her other hand gripping Robin's forearm. "Thank you so much," she said.

"It was fun!" Robin looked to Ted before saying to them both, "Thanks for asking. I'm glad I was still in town. And I got to meet Dani Rojas! Love that guy." She turned to shake hands with Keeley, who yanked her into a hug instead and said, "Next time you're in town call me, yeah?"

"I will," Robin promised. "Though I'm still a little scared of what 'the real London nightlife' is."

"You should be," Rebecca whispered, before adding, "Truly. _Thank you_."

Robin leaned closer to Rebecca and said quietly, "No problem. Get them talking about something else, huh?"

Feeling her face heat up, Rebecca shook her head and stammered, "I -"

But Robin only grinned and turned to Ted, who offered to show her out.

" _Love_ her," Keeley said, scrolling on her phone as they watched her and Ted go. "And social is all over the question of whether men's teams should draft female players, so while that conversation is mostly incredibly sexist and disappointing, at least they've moved on! Erm, except for this person who wants to know whether Robin is your and Ted's beard, or you're hers."

"What?" That quick stab of jealousy was really, really weird. 

"Uh-huh." Keeley was sizing her up. "So nothing? Really? Not even a little friendly heavy petting?"

God, now her face was on fire. " _No_ ," Rebecca insisted. "For fuck's sake. Just - let me know if anything blows up, all right?"

"All right," Keeley said in a tone that suggested she was in no way planning to drop this. "Just remember - he can get it . . . "

Rebecca held up a hand. "Please go take out your 'thirst' on Roy. Thank you."

Remember that he can get it, indeed. Rebecca shivered a little and decided to get back to her work before she started wondering what exactly "friendly heavy petting" was.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain amount of baggage has to be dealt with.
> 
> Trigger warning for . . . Rupert.

Ted was on the phone. It sounded like a strained call, and he indeed looked strained – so she ducked back out of his office intending to go, but he waved for her to wait. Hoping no one else would come along and ask what she was doing there, because she didn’t have an answer, she wandered out into the locker room and looked idly around. The new kit manager had already finished his work for the evening and everything was gleaming and orderly. Rebecca’s eye was caught by a photo tacked up in Dani Rojas’s cubby: a shot taken in Liverpool, she thought, in which the entire team including all the coaching staff and Rebecca herself were visible. She brushed it with her fingertips, touched to see it there. And then laughed at the thought that it was probably the first and last time a young man had her photo in his locker.

She heard a noise behind her and turned to smile at Ted. He was still looking out of sorts, pale and drawn, but she decided not to ask. He hadn’t meant for her to overhear and he’d share if he wanted to.

“Need something?” he asked, the corner of his mouth turning up just a little bit. He seemed pleased to see her even if he was stressed.

She thought about saying something like “I had a question about the budget but it can wait,” but then shook her head and said honestly, “Just drifting.”

That drew a slightly bigger smile out of him, and he leaned against the doorway of his office and said, “Want to drift with me for a while? Might take a walk.”

Rebecca figured “walk” probably meant “talk”, and she was up for that. Especially if he wanted to tell someone why he’d been repeating, “I’m really sorry,” so many times on the phone. She nodded.

“Do you need to change your shoes?” he asked, looking down at her heels.

She looked down too, considering. “Are we walking on Nathan’s grass?”

“It’s not his grass anymore, boss, you know that.”

She met his eyes and smiled.

“But yeah,” he relented, “I thought so.”

“Then I’ll take them off,” she said, ambling toward the door. “Has he left for the night?”

“Nate?”

“Yes. I don’t care what his job is now, you can’t tell me he wouldn’t shout at us for being on his precious pitch.”

“You’re probably right.”

Ted was unusually quiet as they made their way out to the pitch. She did stop and kick her shoes off at the edge of the grass, which was warm under her feet. It had been a rare sunny day for early spring and the sun was still slanting across the pitch, warming her shoulders.

After they’d wandered a few steps along the edge of the pitch in quiet, Ted said, “We’re going to come third.”

It was a heavy admission. Not hopeless by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d – they’d all – hoped for first or second. Third meant they’d have to fight that extra bit for their ticket back to the Premier League. “I know,” she said after a moment.

“I wanted better.”

“I wanted better for you all,” she said. “But you’ve done well. That match in Cardiff couldn’t be helped.” Cardiff had been the difference between a second in the standings and a third, and they all knew it. It had been a winnable match going in, but it was miserable weather and Sam had slipped and been injured. They never recovered momentum.

Ted was quiet again for a while. Then as they came to the end of the pitch and rounded the corner he said, “That – in there. That was . . .” 

After a moment she bumped his shoulder with hers and said, “You don’t have to.”

“No, I want to –” He coughed a little and started over. “Michelle, she’s just – she’s having a hard time.”

She gave him a concerned look and waited.

“She’s . . . there’s two things, I guess, that we weren’t completely on the same page about, or – that she sort of thought were a given but we never actually talked about it.” They walked another few steps before he continued. “I had thought – coming over here, giving her the space she asked for, would be the thing that let us stay together in the end, but she figured it would be the thing that made it easier to agree to a divorce. Which it did, I guess, but I get the feeling she was hoping she wouldn’t have to ask. And I – I didn’t quite make her ask, but she had to be the one to say things weren’t fixable and she didn’t want that.”

That sounded a little passive-aggressive to Rebecca, but she didn’t know Michelle so she kept that to herself.

“And the other thing,” Ted went on, “was she figured I’d come over here for a while, get through the season, get the whole divorce thing settled without us being in each other’s back pockets – and then I’d come home. Not _home_ , to our house, obviously, but back to Kansas. She thought I’d still be around to help with Henry, help with stuff, you know. She didn’t think – she’s a great mom, and she loves Henry more than anything in the world, but she didn’t think she was going to be a full-time single mom. She never thought I’d leave and not come back.”

Now Rebecca did say, quietly, “It’s a bit unrealistic for her to expect to have a say in what you do after she divorces you.”

“She’s not really, she just thought it was going to be different. Thought what she was getting into was . . . something else. And . . .”

Rebecca let a few more steps pass before she asked, “And?”

Beside her she heard Ted take a deep breath. “When you leave someone, you think you’re going to start a new life, right? Find something – better?”

That gave her a moment’s pause. Finally she said, “You know, I’m not sure. Maybe sometimes. Or maybe if you’re leaving something intolerable, you’re only thinking about getting away. Though obviously that wasn’t her situation.”

She could feel Ted looking at her, so she carefully kept her eyes on the grass ahead.

“Yeah,” he said after a while. “Well. I guess to her it feels like I’m the one starting something new, and she’s treading water.”

Rebecca wondered if he – if Michelle – was referring to the new country and the new team, or if Michelle followed AFC Richmond on Instagram. She decided not to mention it, since the answer to _do you really want to start that conversation?_ was _no_.

“Anyway,” Ted said. “She’s just kind of – lashing out.”

“It’s not fair for her to take that out on you,” Rebecca murmured. Then, because she did have an ounce of self-awareness, she added with a derisive laugh, “She and I should start a club.”

Ted laughed as well, a small short sound that was mostly breath, and he brushed his hand against Rebecca’s and then actually turned their palms together and took her hand for half a second. He’d let go again before her mind caught up to the gesture.

It was . . . it was friendly, it was forgiving, but it was something else, too. Almost as if – almost as if they were already in the middle of something that hadn’t even started. Rebecca shivered.

“You’re cold,” Ted said. “We could go back in.”

She shook her head. “Momentary chill. I’m fine.” She really was; the sun was almost down now but the dusk was still warm.

He nodded, looking away from her, toward the sky. “It’s a nice night.”

“You know,” Rebecca said slowly. They were coming to another corner of the pitch now. “I spent a long time – treading water. Stuck, I mean. I wasn’t thinking much about having a new life. _I_ left, but I left because he left me without actually leaving. And thought he could go on that way and I wouldn’t do anything about it. But I wasn’t – going anywhere, you know, I was just in. Anger. I was living in anger and hurt and I wasn’t even trying to get out of it.” She licked her lips nervously, swallowed, and forced it out. “You’re the reason I’m not still there.”

Ted actually stopped walking, looking at her. “Rebecca,” he said.

She was in danger of being too sincere; she had to laugh at herself. “I mean it,” she said mid-laugh, walking on and shrugging forward to get him to join her. “You, and Keeley, and everyone – but mostly you. If I hadn’t hired you – which I only did because . . . I mean I’m sure that’s some kind of irony. But you were just bound and determined that I was going to rejoin the human race, and – I did.” She looked at him with a wry smile and another shrug, almost willing him to laugh it off. She’d had to say it, but he didn’t have to . . .

He looked as if he were struggling with something. When he spoke, it was to say, “You did that. Nobody could have made you.”

She opened her mouth to protest. He held up a hand.

“No, I mean yeah, I tried to . . .”

“Bond?” she suggested.

Now he did laugh. “Right. That. And get you involved with the team, get you . . . but you had to decide yourself. And you did.” He nudged her hand with his again, but didn’t take it. “Because you’re not the kind of person to want to just be angry forever.”

“That’s a generous statement I’m not sure I deserve,” she said, staring up at the last bits of sunset.

“Well, you do, so live with it.”

Startled, she laughed properly.

“And look where you are,” he said. 

“Barefoot on a football pitch?”

“Barefoot on _your_ football pitch. Building a legacy that’s yours, not Rupert’s or anybody else’s.”

She looked at him. “Well.”

“Well what?”

“Ted.”

He looked legitimately confused. “What?”

With one bare foot she kicked him gently in the shin. “ _Nobody_ else’s, Coach Lasso?”

“Oh. Well.” He tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Okay. But still.”

“Still nothing.” Looking down into the dark at the grass under her feet, she said, “I’ll be perfectly happy to share a legacy with you. You know, unless we lose to Nottingham Forest this week.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw him rubbing a hand over his face. “This new life stuff. It’s not uncomplicated.”

“No,” she agreed fervently.

“I mean.” She heard his deep inhale and slow, heavy exhale. “You know. What I don’t understand – I was never even tempted, you know? I mean sure, you recognize that a person is attractive and everybody responds to that – well I guess not _everybody_ , you know, no . . . asexual erasure intended, but you know what I mean. But there wouldn’t be the connection part, and that takes so long to build up, and you can just choose not to, can’t you? If you’re unavailable, or they are, you just _don’t_ – and then I can’t see what would ever be that tempting.” He stopped. “Is it – unfair to be talking to you about this?”

Feeling mostly pretty confused, Rebecca said, “You can talk to me about anything.”

He nodded, slowly, several times. “It’s just hard to adjust,” he said. “To – you know, even – um. I never knew whether I should tell you this, but – when we were in Liverpool –”

“I know, Ted,” she said, taking pity on him.

He barely reacted. “I should have figured you would. But that was – if I ever wondered, you know, whether one-night stands could be my thing. They are not.”

Thinking of, well, Liverpool, Rebecca mused, “Not mine either, really. Not as a . . . regular approach to life.”

“Right. It works for some people I guess. But that wasn’t my point – my point was just, it’s weird to think about being . . . available. To realize you’re in a position to do all that all over again. To make that connection with somebody.”

His words hung over the darkening pitch. Rebecca shivered again. They were almost back to where they’d started and she was both sorry and relieved. And not just because the grass was now cold under her feet.

They stopped and Ted put up his hand for her to hold as she stepped back into her shoes. “Thanks for listening, boss,” he said.

Instead of noting that they were back to “boss,” she looked at him, really looked. This uncertainty, the difficulty forcing words out, she’d never seen him like this – it wasn’t the Ted she knew, but at the same time it fit. It was him, just an unpracticed, off-guard him that he hadn’t shown her before now. She held his hand for just an extra moment, thinking of what she owed him, and said, “Thanks for letting me.”

*****

Some nights almost no one stayed late; some nights almost everyone did. Rebecca got lucky.

One night just weeks from the end of the season, she left the building alone at dusk – the same time of day she and Ted had been walking around the pitch on a night not too long ago – and someone was standing by her car. For a moment this didn’t register, until she remembered that she’d driven herself that day and there should not be a driver waiting for her. And there wasn’t. Just one extremely unwelcome ex-husband.

“Rupert?” she said as soon as she’d realized. “What are you doing here? You’re not having _another_ baby, are you?” The first must be barely six months old, and she’d assumed the demands of fatherhood were partly responsible for the fact that she hadn’t seen Rupert in ages.

She hadn’t missed this, either him or the feeling of being wrong-footed and trying to guess what he would do next.

“That’s a pleasant greeting,” he said. “Just dropping by my club, obviously.”

“ _My_ club,” she replied almost automatically. “And even if you did have the right to ‘drop by,’ what are you doing lurking in the parking lot?”

“ _Lurking_ ,” he repeated. “My God, you really do only get more charming, don’t you?”

“I do not have time for this.” She motioned for him to step aside, but he only moved so that he was more fully blocking her car door. For half a moment she contemplated getting in on the passenger side and climbing over.

“Fine,” he said, both hands held up. “I’m taking pity on you, if you want to know.”

“Pity?”

“Hasn’t this gone on long enough?” The wanker was actually leaning against her car now. “You’re going to finish out of contention. You can’t possibly be enjoying this and it’s only going to be humiliating when Richmond spend another season in the Championship.”

“Oh, this is new,” she said. “You’ve finally gotten around to actually trying to get me to sell back to you, as opposed to just telling the press I was and hoping magic would happen?”

“I never told the press anything.”

She shrugged. “All right.” It wasn’t as if it mattered what he said.

“But look,” he said in a voice that was probably supposed to be conciliatory, or possibly even some version of seductive. “Wasn’t it better the way things were?”

“The way things were?”

“Me running the club; you doing – the things you were good at.”

Rebecca would have bet solid money that he had no idea what those things were. “We were married,” she reminded him. “We weren’t business partners. You didn’t hire me as an event-planner.”

“And wasn’t _that_ better than the way things are now?”

“Being married to you?” After a year and a half and a great deal of reflection, Rebecca could honestly say, emphatically, “No.”

Rupert sighed. “You always were petty. Look, I’m offering you a chance. Wind back the clock. We can be partners if you like.”

Rebecca stared at him, nose wrinkling in confusion, for exactly long enough to realize what was going on. “You’re bored.”

“Rebecca –”

“You’ve got a wife and a child and nothing to do but mess with your investments, and you’re bored.” And it was more than that. Even if there was a way for him to take the club back, he very possibly couldn’t do it without her. His child bride with an infant at home couldn’t manage things the way Old Rebecca had done. Wind back the clock, indeed. “You’re not going to walk out on her?”

“Of course not,” Rupert scoffed.

“No, of course not, think of the child maintenance. You’re probably cheating on her already, aren’t you? Don’t answer that, I don’t actually want to know.”

“This doesn’t have to be unpleasant, Rebecca.”

“It doesn’t have to be anything.” She stepped purposefully closer, car keys extended. “Move.”

His hand closed on her extended wrist. “I’m offering you something, here. You don’t seem to understand.”

Looking him in the eye, as well as she could in the gathering darkness, she said, “I don’t have to understand. Let go and move out of my way.”

“You don’t miss _us_?” he insisted, still holding on to her arm. “You haven’t been alone long enough yet?”

“Christ, Rupert,” she said. She tried to yank her arm away but his grip was too good. “If you’re seriously asking me to be your _mistress_ \- no, sorry, _one of_ your mistresses – you’ve really gone insane. Perhaps it’s early onset dementia.”

“You always have to make everything such a fucking struggle,” he said, in a voice that almost successfully dragged her back five or ten years.

Almost. “Are you drunk?” she asked, peering more closely at his face.

“I’d have to be, to even consider – _that_.” His eyes raked her up and down. “Though I suppose if I absolutely have to sleep with you to get you to see sense . . .”

Rebecca considered kicking him in the shins – or higher – or stomping on the arch of his foot, but who knew what he could do with that kind of ammunition? If she let him bait her into “attacking” him? Instead she tried one more time to twist her wrist out of his grip.

Which was when someone loudly shouted, “ _Oi!”_ in a baritone like the sound of a cannonshot.

It was Roy Kent, obviously, coming out of the building with someone else she couldn’t see in the dim light behind him. No one else could convey that kind of murderous rage with one word.

“The fuck is going on?” Roy asked.

“Roy,” Rupert said, twisting away from Rebecca to smile at his erstwhile team captain. “Good to see you. Afraid this is a private conversation, though.”

Roy stopped a few paces away with his feet firmly planted. “I don’t know what conversation would require you to put your hands on her, but it’s over,” he said.

Something dangerous clouded Rupert’s expression, and he started to say, “I don’t know what you think –”

“I think you’re leaving,” Roy said.

It was Richard who’d been behind him, she could see him coming closer now, and Isaac as well, his bulk blocking her view of the entrance. She heard the door thrown open as someone else went back inside yelling, “Gaff! _Gaff!”_

She did not need this. Luckily, with Rupert distracted, another firm twist removed her arm somewhat painfully from his grasp. “It’s time for you to go, Rupert,” she said, being as firm as she could while also backing away from him. “Do you need me to call you a car?”

“All right, we all just need to calm down,” Rupert said, both hands raised in a placatory gesture.

She hated to agree with him, but on this point he was correct. She counted five – no, six players gathered around her and Roy, and if this situation escalated it could not have a good ending. She also hated that she was shaking, which she didn’t even realize until someone put their hand on her shoulder. (It turned out to be Dani Rojas, who had to reach up to do it.)

“Rupert,” she said, letting her gaze take in the array of angry young men who apparently didn’t care that he – or rather, his wife – owned two-point-nine percent of the club. “You’re going.”

“Sounds like we’re all agreed.” And, shit, that was Ted. 

Rebecca turned to watch him coming through the small crowd of players, who parted for him like a scene from a film. She realized, looking at his face, that she’d only _thought_ she had seen Ted angry before. When she’d traded Jamie, or that time a Derby player had clearly fouled Dani and the ref hadn’t called it. But this – this was a whole new level. He was forcing a casual tone and posture, but his face at this point might have constituted a legal threat.

Rupert looked as though he might be about to deliver a cartoon villain “you’re all going to regret this” speech, which would have been funnier if Rebecca could have stopped herself from shaking. What he finally said instead was, “Just a misunderstanding. Coach.”

“Thought so.” Without taking his laser stare from Rupert, Ted said, “You all go along, fellas. We’re fine here. Boss has things under control.”

She saw Roy and Isaac both make eye contact with him, and then Roy looked to her. She nodded and tried to smile.

Ted stepped closer to her side as the players all moved off to the street or their own cars. “Tell your wife I said hi,” he said, still mostly containing the edge in his voice. “You need a ride or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Rupert said, at last moving away from Rebecca’s car. “Just,” he tossed in her direction, “think about what I said.”

“I definitely won’t,” she said.

He rolled his eyes, but he went.

Once he was out of sight, she started taking very deep breaths and Ted put an arm around her shoulders. “You all right?” he asked.

She nodded, but he must have noticed the shaking.

“Hey, hey,” he said, and came around to pull her into a hug instead. “It’s okay. What happened?”

Rebecca looked at his shoulder and admitted, “I did not have that under control. I should have, but I never expected he’d get – like that.” She pulled back from Ted and tried to steady herself. “Nothing happened. He seems to think he can weasel his way back in somehow, is all.”

Ted still had his hands on her elbows. It struck her as strange, how different that could feel. “Colin said he was hurting you,” he said carefully.

She shook her head. “Just wouldn’t let go of me, that’s all. I could have done something but . . .” She sighed, and said, “Thank you for coming out. In a minute someone was going to throw a punch, and that would have come back on me. You don’t know . . .” Her hand was on Ted’s chest, patting vaguely in some kind of expression of gratitude. “How he is, how he can twist things. I was envisioning myself being dragged into a lawsuit.”

“That would be bad,” Ted agreed. “Are we going to have to get a restraining order or something?”

“I doubt it. He’s been embarrassed, which _will_ piss him off, but he won’t be looking for another demonstration that the team isn’t on his side. His public face is still ‘the hero of Richmond.’”

“Not for long,” Ted said. “Not once we get promoted.”

Rebecca took another steadying breath and felt it actually working. “No. Right.”

“I can’t actually offer to take you home . . .” Ted said, gently rubbing her upper arms.

“Because you’d drive us directly into oncoming traffic?”

“I’m really gonna have to get some lessons at some point,” he said. “But. I can go with you? For a while?”

“That’s a kind offer,” she began.

“Help you check the bushes? Make sure no one’s lurking around?”

Well fuck, now she was going to want to check the bushes. Though the thought of Rupert skulking around the garden was sufficiently ridiculous that she wasn’t really concerned about it.

“Actually,” she said, the idea feeling even better as she spoke, “will you come and have dinner with me? Somewhere out.” In public. In a crowd.

Ted looked surprised for a moment but then said, “Sure. Safety in numbers. Man – how about the team, though?”

“Yeah,” she said, now able to smile at the image. “They were good.”

“They have your back.” 

They did, apparently.

Ted released her and walked to the driver’s side of the car, almost opened the door, then said, “damnit” and walked around to the other side. Rebecca let herself have a moment to sigh before getting in herself.


End file.
